Chapter 270: The Solution

Garren and Seren exchanged glances that said one thing: Ouuuuuuu!

The idea had hit them like a wave, washing away the uncertainty that had been lingering in the air. Seren suddenly raised her hands up and said to Darion that that was a good idea!

Her voice was bright, almost excited, as if she had just realized something that had been hiding in plain sight. "That’s actually brilliant," she said. "Why didn’t we think of that earlier?"

I mean, it was a good idea. It was a really good idea. And the more Darion thought about it, the more he realized just how perfect it was.

Killing an undead wouldn’t mean harming anyone. That was the core of it. An undead wasn’t alive. It didn’t have feelings, didn’t have a family, didn’t have a future.

It was a tool, a weapon, a construct of magic and bone. It existed to serve, and if it was destroyed, it could be replaced. There was no guilt, moral ambiguity, or lingering regret. It was just training.

Killing an undead wouldn’t mean losing a loyal knight. The knights of Percvale were valuable, and irreplaceable at this point. They had families, hopes, dreams. He would never risk their lives for training. But an undead?

An undead was different. It was a resource, one that could be used and reused without consequence. If one was destroyed, Darion could simply raise another. It was that simple.

And killing an undead wouldn’t mean harming a living creature. Animals were living beings, with instincts and fears and survival drives. They fought to live, and they didn’t understand the concept of training.

An animal wouldn’t hold back. It would attack with everything it had, and if a move went wrong, Darion could be seriously injured or worse. There was no room for error, no safety net.

Undeads on the other hand. An undead would follow orders perfectly. It would attack when told to attack, hold back when told to hold back, and stop when told to stop. It wouldn’t panic, wouldn’t hesitate and wouldn’t make mistakes. It was the perfect training partner.

Garren agreed that it was a good idea. "An undead is replaceable," he said, his voice calm. "Unlike a human life. And it will be better to execute compared to an animal, who would be wild and erratic and just short. That means that Darion would have to bend down to do the moves. But an undead is like the skeleton of a human.

It’s tall, bipedal, and moves in ways that are similar to a living person. That means Darion can execute his moves on a human-shaped target, just a bone version. It’s as close to fighting a real person as he can get without actually endangering anyone."

Darion nodded, absorbing Garren’s words. He was right. An undead was the perfect training partner. It was tall, bipedal, and moved in ways that were similar to a living person. It could hold a weapon, take a hit, and keep going. It was as close to fighting a real person as he could get without actually endangering anyone.

And it would be like playing a video game for him.

Well, Darion could basically say commands to his undeads. Meaning that he could tell them to do whatever he told them to do. Fight. Protect. Run. Jump. Lay on the floor.

Anything normal that they could do. Not abnormal things like flying, because an Undead knight couldn’t fly. But anything within the realm of human movement, they could do.

So in the case of the training, all Darion had to do was tell the undeads to act as test subjects. And they would do that. They would attack him, defend themselves, and react to his moves exactly as he commanded. They would be his training partners, his practice dummies, his sparring partners.

And unlike animals, who he was risking his life by facing with no way to command them to stop in case a move did not work right, with an undead, he could just tell it what to do, how to fight him without harming him in the end.

It was the perfect solution. It was safe, controlled, and effective. And it was exactly what he needed.

Darion smiled. "Alright," he said. "Let’s do it. Let’s use the undead."

———

Darion stood in the center of the courtyard, his sword in hand, the morning sun casting long shadows across the stone floor. The workers were still at their tents, the castle quiet except for the distant sounds of the construction site. It was the perfect time for what he was about to do.

He reached into his inventory and summoned six undead knights. They materialized in flashes of green light, their bodies forming from nothing, their eyes glowing in the dim morning light. They stood in a neat row, their weapons at their sides, their hollow gazes fixed on him. They were patient, waiting, ready to serve.

Darion looked at them, his mind already turning over the sequences he had mastered. Six moves. Six undead. One move for each undead. It was perfect symmetry.

He instructed them through the binding, his thoughts flowing into their minds like water through a channel.

They would attack him one by one, giving him the opportunity to practice each move in sequence. They would not hold back, but they would also not kill him. They would be his training partners.

"First," he said, his voice calm but firm. "Come at me."

The first undead stepped forward, its sword raised, its movements stiff but deliberate. It lunged at him, its blade aimed at his chest.

Darion moved, his body flowing through the first sequence. A bunch of leg placements, a shift of weight, and then a strike forward. The golden light rippled from his blade, cutting through the air in a powerful wave.

It struck the undead in the chest, knocking it backward. The undead stumbled, its body cracking, and then it collapsed into a pile of bones.

Darion stood over the remains, his breath coming in short gasps. One down. Five to go.